


The Art Of Bajur

by Project0506



Series: Soft Wars [11]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Brothers, Everything is Beautiful and Nothing Hurts, Gen, Healthy Relationships, Now with bonus outtake, gen - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-03
Updated: 2020-04-03
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:41:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23459539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Project0506/pseuds/Project0506
Summary: Bajur: The Mando'a principle of the education and nurturing of childrenAnakin demonstrates how far he's come
Relationships: CC-2224 | Cody & CT-7567 | Rex, Obi-Wan Kenobi & Anakin Skywalker
Series: Soft Wars [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1683775
Comments: 96
Kudos: 1134





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be part 3 of a 3 part series. I don't know what happened to that.
> 
> Mando'a translations are included in the end notes, with links to take you back to where you were. Mando'a definitions from [mandoa.org](http://mandoa.org/).

“Is that a toy?” General Kenobi asks, and immediately Skywalker’s shoulders hunch defensively.

“Yeah,” he says, low and guarded. “Something wrong with that?” He tucks the tiny plasteel half-sphere he’s working on just a little further into the crook of his elbow.

General Kenobi seems a little startled, a little amused, perhaps not disapproving but right on the edge of it, it looks like. Rex straightens.

“Stand down,” Cody orders softly but with steel.

Rex cuts a glance his way, but obeys without showing any of the reluctance he feels. Cody’s eyes don’t leave the scene in front of them.

He chuckles quietly. “Still a pouter, Rex’ika?” he teases too quietly for the conversing Jedi to hear them.

Rex doesn’t grit his teeth. “Not the place,” he says.

“Stand down,” Cody repeats, gentler this time. “Steady there, buir1,” he says. “Even the smallest ad’ika2 has to pick up his own blaster sometime. If you keep holding it for them, they’ll never learn to aim.”

Cody’s right and they both know it. Rex settles back against the wall next to him with petulantly bad grace.

“It just strikes me as out of character is all,” Kenobi says, a hand tugging at his beard, eyes darting up from the topical map they’d been studying. “Possibly slightly below your skill level, even.”

He’s teasing, Rex realizes, but it’s equally clear Skywalker is having a hard time seeing that. Skywalker already had an idea in his head of how this conversation was going to go from the first word, and he’s not listening to what’s actually being said. They’ve run in to that a couple of times before, enough that Rex was starting to wonder if it was systemic. It appears so.

They’ll have to work more on active listening. Rex makes a mental note.

Skywalker is halfway through starting something no doubt sharp and angry when he just. Stops. Holds up a hand. “Sorry but can you just. Give me one second please master?” He takes two steps backwards to Kenobi’s visible bewilderment, spins on his heel and takes three more away.

Disengage. Asses. Adjust strategy as needed. _‘Oya vod! 3’_ Rex thinks fiercely. Cody makes a quiet approving noise and Rex tries not to grin.

Skywalker takes only a few seconds, fingers clicking through the circuit switches lining the shell of the palm-sized half-sphere. It’s not very long at all in the grand scheme of things. A few seconds to keep yourself from breaking something is more than worth the weeks months years lifetime it might take to fix it.

When he turns back around and strides back into polite conversation range, Kenobi seems to pick up that something settled. The general’s face is warm and open, and Skywalker has his full attention.

“I have trouble meditating,” he says. He glares a little when Kenobi looks like he’s about to say something. “I _know_ you know that. I have trouble meditating in the normal way, I’ve only ever been good at moving meditation. And I _am_ actually good at that now, it’s basically all I can do. But sometimes I need to focus and we’re in a place where I can’t exactly whip out my ‘saber and fire through a couple of kata.” He waves a hand at the ready room in illustration.

They’ve pushed all the chairs up against the wall but with the holoprojector dominating the center, there’s not a lot of room to maneuver. And Skywalker’s fighting style seems to have a lot of jumping, so there’s that.

“So. I needed something that did the same thing. Make me focus on the motions. Defined start and end points. Repeatable, with the same input producing the same output. Option to introduce variations. Portable. So I asked Rex what to do.” Skywalker spares him a glance too fast for him to read. “And he went digging around some markets in Coruscant and came up with this.”

Kenobi silently asks to see it, and Skywalker relinquishes the half-sphere with only barely noticeable hesitation.

“It’s… a kit. Baby’s first droid, or something,” he babbles as Kenobi carefully rolls it between his hands, inspecting. “One of those things they give kids to encourage interest in engineering and learning binary with low pressure. But you can do a lot more stuff if you dig under the stock components and the rudimentary software.”

Kenobi chuckles and returns the half-built droid, glove to glove so there’s no risk of it falling. As if it was something far more precious than a 100 credit toy. “Anakin,” he says, soft and gentle. “It’s an ingenious solution.”

Skywalker shrugs. “It’s all Rex,” he says, looking anywhere but at any of them. “He probably has pockets filled with the things; he always has one on hand when I get agitated.”

Kenobi shares that warm smile with Rex. He straightens. “Wouldn’t have even known what to look for if you hadn’t analyzed the problem and come up with the requirements to address it sir,” he retorts loyally, voice firm. He lets the smallest grin free. “And besides, giving a shiny a hundred credits, a mocked up mission briefing and turning them loose in a mid-level department store is great fun. We’re thinking of making a highlight reel.”

General Kenobi is laughing quietly now and the defensiveness has all but disappeared from Skywalker. “I’d heard that you two were wonderfully matched,” Kenobi says. “I must say I’m relieved to see that it’s true.” Rex and his general share a grin. The mood lingers in the room, even when the generals drift back to examining maps tracking seppie activity.

Rex pushes up to join them but Cody knocks a fist against Rex’s backplate, just hard enough to feel. His mouth is smiling but his words are serious.

“So you’d know, I’d be willing to recognize him.”

Rex breathes, carefully. “We’re not recognized as Mando’ade4,” he reminds Cody almost silently, as though it might have been something Cody could forget. “You can’t legally be my alor5. I can’t legally adopt _anyone_.”

Cody carefully, deliberately glaces at Kenobi, then back to Rex. Rex’s breath catches. What?

“That might not always be true,” Cody prevaricates, just as softly. “And if there comes a time when it’s not? Know that I would recognize him.”

Rex doesn’t know what’s going on. It’s clear he’s not to know, not yet. But his next breath comes easier, almost bubbling out of him. “Alright. Alright, okay. That’s. That’s good to know.”

Cody grins the smile that always meant mischief. He snugs Rex’s neck and tips their foreheads together.

“You did good, Rex’ika,” he says.

Rex laughs again. “If you think that’s impressive,” he murmurs, “wait til you meet my Padawan.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. Parent. Back  
> 2\. Baby. Back  
> 3\. A positive, triumphant expression, like 'Cheers, brother!' Literally: 'Let's hunt brother!' Back  
> 4\. Mandalorians. Literally: Sons/Daughters of Mandalore. Back  
> 5\. Leader, chief. In this context 'head of a clan'. Back  
> 


	2. Outtake

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anakin knows how to win points with Cody. He demonstrates.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> COMEDY OUTTAKE TO CLEAR THE PALATE
> 
> Look I’m a humor writer, I can’t apologize for what I am.

“Commander,” Skywalker calls cheerfully, all but bouncing into the briefing room. “Hi Obi-Wan. Hey Commander I have a present for you.”

“A wonderful morning to you too Anakin,” Kenobi says, eyebrows climbing halfway to his hairline. Cody carefully puts down the cup of tea he was about to take a sip from and eyes both 501st members warily. Rex, following a half pace back and to his general’s does not allow even the smallest flicker to cross his face to give anything away. That avenue proven well and truly useless, Cody turns his full attention to Skywalker.

“A present sir? Can I ask what the occasion is?”

“I never did thank you for finding me Rex,” Skywalker makes up on the spot.

“I had no influence on that decision,” Cody protests.

“Not what Ponds says,” Skywalker shoots him down airily. Even Rex can’t tell if that one was a lie. Windu keeps almost no secrets from Ponds; if anyone would know if Cody manipulated assignments, if anyone would _let_ Cody manipulate assignments to snag a specific one for Rex, it’d be Ponds.

Then again, Ponds was almost as likely to have done it himself, and blame Cody.

Rex learned his blank face from Cody, so the commander’s face gives away just as much as Rex’s does: nothing.

“So! Present!” With a truly unnecessary flair learned no doubt from those old people holonet game shows Rex is convinced will _rot his brain_ , Skywalker proudly produces a matched pair of palm-sized, spherical droids. They’re painted to match Cody himself, white with his characteristic trident and cuisse stripe in 212th gold. Slowly, with visible wariness, Cody accepts one in each hand.

“Thank you?”

Skywalker ignores him and whistles.

The center seam on each droid splits and the half-spheres separate about an inch. A rotor block snaps out of each side, a pair of three-fingered pincers pop out the both front and back of each and a light flickers on from deep in in the center of the sphere, a typical signal for a droid’s awareness being online. “Hey guys, _this_ is Commander Cody okay.” They both beep a greeting on the eager side of polite.

Rex has known Cody since he was shorter than a hip holster. No one but Rex and Cody’s cadet squad would have been able to tell that Cody is completely bewildered and just very good at faking.

“Hello,” he greets politely. He eyes their rotor blocks. “I assume you fly?”

They beep an ascent and fire up their rotors, hovering over his palms.

“That’s Widget,” Skywalker explains. The one on the left waves one of their front pincers. “And Gizmo.” The other waves. “And they’re about to make your life so much easier.”

Cody allows some of his dubiousness to cross his face. Skywalker is undeterred.

“Here, I’ll show you what I mean. Master spar with me.”

“What? Here? Now?” Kenobi is also very confused but clearly years of close contact with Skywalker has taught him that sometimes you just have to let the man do what he’s going to do.

“Just for a minute, we’ll be fine.”

They stare each other down for a moment, possibly having a conversation. Rex has never been clear on how the Force works on that point. Finally Kenobi acquiesces. “Oh alright, but there had better be no interruptions afterward Anakin. This briefing is important.”

“Yes yes,” Anakin brushes the words away as if chasing a fly. “Let’s spar,”

Kenobi stands with an elegant shrug, his robe sliding neatly to the floor as he draws his saber in the same motion.

Immediately Widget’s rotors pick up speed. All eyes follow it as it zips between Cody and his general, dodging smoothly around the man and snapping up the shed robe in two pincers. They all watch, Skywalker eager, Rex blank, and Cody and Kenobi in dawning realization as the little droid does a wide curve to keep safely out of anyone’s combat zone and comes to a hover an arm-and-a-half lengths distance behind Cody, robe dangling like a flag.

“What,” Cody breathes.

“Anakin!”

Skywalker grins. “But wait,” he intones. “ _There’s more_. Master lend me your lightsaber.”

“No!” Kenobi denies immediately. A slow smile starts to grow on Cody’s face.

“Obi-wan,” Skywalker harries and hassles Cody’s general until he manages to confiscate the man’s lightsaber. “Watch very closely, this is kind of technical,” Skywalker laughs, and tosses the ‘saber across the room.

It is to absolutely no one’s surprise that Gizmo whirls into action, gliding neatly to the lightsaber hilt and flying it back behind Cody.

Rex knows his cue in this little demonstration. He strides purposefully towards Gizmo and with unnecessary flourish, attempts to retrieve the saber from the little droid. Gizmo darts neatly out of his reach once, twice. On the third attempt, Widget drops General Kenobi’s robe and moves to assist their sibling, producing a buzzing little taser and menacing Rex with it until he retreats.

In the dead silence that follows, Cody slowly reaches out towards Gizmo. He has none of the issues Rex does: the droid happily drops the hilt into his hand with a merry little blatt and buzzes off to hover out of Cody’s way.

“Anakin _really_!” Kenobi protests.

“I read your mission reports master!”

The Jedi squabbling is all background noise to Rex and Cody. Rex meets Cody’s eyes, his own smile sneaking through his control and twitching at the corners of his eyes. Cody huffs a laugh and tips his head in surrender. “I definitely recognize him now,” he says.

“Understood,” Rex says because Cody had taught him everything he knew about being a little shit. “In that case I’ll allow you custody every other weekend.”

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Experiential Learning](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23493478) by [Project0506](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Project0506/pseuds/Project0506)
  * [Programmed Misadventures](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23858638) by [Project0506](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Project0506/pseuds/Project0506)




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